Yesterday #koraleriet – A PROJECT ON FEMALE VOICES. ANCIENT PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC LOCAL HYMNS. MONODIC AND POLYPHONIC – met to sing and to record a few songs in Kallinge kyrka. We were only four singers instead of nine, and that invited us to play around with new sounds for a while.

Apart from preparing for our big recording session that will take place in April, we ended up singing songs only from Kristin’s relatives. The fact that these songs are now passed on and spread to singers and listeners very far away from what we refer to as the original setting (even though all similar settings are equally original in the eyes of tradition) made me eager to make a short film of one of the songs, a funeral hymn after my great grandfather Back Erk Daniel Ersson. This to show the very people that have been crucial in keeping this singing style and this particular song alive, and NOT stored in some archive someplace.

When performing traditional music nowadays, it is often the performers that get the appreciation, while the sources remain anonymised. This little video is an attempt to turn this around, to rather show the great mutual confidence and strong personal connections that are the foundation for any strong tradition. From the old wooden cabin in the late 1800s, until today. A quite exotic approach in a capitalist post modern world where we are believed to construct our identity through picking and mixing any impulse we may like along the way, and to earn admiration as if we invented it ourselves.

From men to women, from strictly religious to a (for some of our singers) semi-secular approach, from vertical transmission through six generations in Dalarna, to horisontal transmission among friends and colleagues in Blekinge 2016!

After all, you do share your best songs and advice only with the ones you love!!

Last Sunday we, five of nine singers from #koraleriet, sang chorales at the medieval inspired service in Heliga Kors church in Ronneby.

One of the chorales sung was the all-time-high-hit Den Signade Dag, which oldest found transmission in writing is dated to 1450.This chorale has been sung continuously for hundreds of years and ties together catholicism and protestantism.

Our version of melody was noted down by Nils Stålberg, and sung to him by Ingrid Isaksson, who lived in a small cottage in the village Röaby, some km north of Bräkne-Hoby in Blekinge.

The musical arrangements are made by Kristin Borgehed,after detailed analyses of how melody interacts with pronunciation patterns in that very local dialect.

On Sunday (31 January) Ronneby Parish will conduct a medieval inspired service in Holy Cross Church in Ronneby.

Koraleriet is very much involved. In the service there will also be five of us nine singers in Koraleriet, performing three hymns and songs from the performance that we have worked with over the past year. A first teaser in front of an audience.

Our own singer Emma, as the leader of the Church LARP group, will take part in processions and ceremonies. In addition, Astrid has been visiting the group teaching medieval ballads and singing games, which they will perform in the church.

The service, which starts at 18:00, will continue on the church grounds with preaching and fire jesters.
Welcome to an exciting Sunday experience!